A drugs gang was watching her – and had invaded her home. Her daughter, thousands of miles away, was being followed around the clock and they had threatened to kill her if there was anything other than a ‘not guilty’ verdict. She was breaking the law and risked going to prison herself – not to mention trying to help a major criminal evade justice.

The spinning wheel in the gerbil cage began squeaking; one of them was inside, turning it increasingly quickly, as if at some point, if he got fast enough, it would stop simply rotating and actually lead him somewhere – perhaps Mongolia, where most of them originated from, Meg thought with a faint smile. At first when Laura had given her the list, she’d viewed looking after these creatures as a chore, but now she found them comforting; grounding.

She was so damned wound up. A run would do her good, she knew, realizing she hadn’t done any exercise for almost a week. Overwhelmed, suddenly, by everything, she sat down on the soft bed, feeling utter despair.

God, she so desperately needed to talk to someone. But she didn’t dare.

She had a friend on the jury – but who was it? The evidence against Gready today from that officer, DS Alexander, was pretty damning. Although, if she was honest, Meg had lost track a little as he’d detailed, throughout the long afternoon, the chain of overseas companies and how they connected. She’d tried hard to follow, but it had done her head in – as it had for some of the other jurors, too, she could tell.

All that stuff before, about whether or not Terence Gready had been in his office when the man who had driven the vehicle into Newhaven, Michael Starr, had been there, too. That did not seem to have played well with the jurors. During a brief afternoon recess, Mike Roberts, sounding more like a cop than ever, had said he found the evidence so far to be strong and, in his view, the defence was squirming. He was backed up by Maisy, who seemed to have changed her mind, Toby, Edmond, Sophie, Mark and Harold. The ones who had kept quiet were Hari Singh, Rory O’Brien and Hugo Pink.

The man had very definitely said a friend.

Who? Hugo Pink was one possibility, she suspected. He wasn’t accepting any of the negative evidence. Rory O’Brien was possibly another, but she couldn’t be sure, he was difficult to read.

She’d looked up online to see if, with a jury reduced to eleven, a judge could still convict on a 9–2 verdict. They could.

If, however, more than two jurors were unconvinced of his guilt then that would simply result in a hung jury, and the judge would likely go for a retrial. And that wasn’t acceptable. It had already been made very plain to her what was needed. Those two words. Nothing less.